Month: October 2013

Inspirational quotes and motivational quotes have the power to get us through a bad week, and can even give us the courage to pursue our life’s dreams. In my book, 4 Keys to Happiness and Fulfillment at Work, I share surprising research into the true triggers of workplace motivation. So in the spirit of self motivation, here are 100 inspirational quotes.

Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. –Napoleon Hill

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. –Steve Jobs

Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value. –Albert Einstein

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. –Robert Frost

The common question that gets asked in business is, ‘why?’ That’s a good question, but an equally valid question is, ‘why not?’ -Jeffrey Bezos

You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. –Wayne Gretzky

I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. –Michael Jordan

Every strike brings me closer to the next home run. –Babe Ruth

Definiteness of purpose is the starting point of all achievement. –W. Clement Stone

Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. –John Lennon

We become what we think about. –Earl Nightingale

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do, so throw off the bowlines, sail away from safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore, Dream, Discover. –Mark Twain

Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. –John Maxwell

If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten. –Tony Robbins

The mind is everything. What you think you become. –Buddha

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now. –Chinese Proverb

An unexamined life is not worth living. –Socrates

Eighty percent of success is showing up. –Woody Allen

Don’t wait. The time will never be just right. –Napoleon Hill

Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is. –Vince Lombardi

I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions. –Stephen Covey

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. –Pablo Picasso

You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore. –Christopher Columbus

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. –Maya Angelou

Either you run the day, or the day runs you. –Jim Rohn

Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right. –Henry Ford

The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why. –Mark Twain

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. –Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The best revenge is massive success. –Frank Sinatra

People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing. That’s why we recommend it daily. –Zig Ziglar

Inspiration exists, but it must find you working. –Pablo Picasso

If you hear a voice within you say “you cannot paint,” then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced. –Vincent Van Gogh

There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing. –Aristotle

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off the goal. –Henry Ford

The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be. –Ralph Waldo Emerson

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined. –Henry David Thoreau

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say, I used everything you gave me. –Erma Bombeck

Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are always asking, “What’s in it for me?” – Brian Tracy

Certain things catch your eye, but pursue only those that capture the heart. – Ancient Indian Proverb

Believe you can and you’re halfway there. –Theodore Roosevelt

Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear. –George Addair

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. –Plato

Once you choose hope, anything’s possible. –Christopher Reeve

Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. –Arthur Ashe

When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life. –John Lennon

Fall seven times and stand up eight. –Japanese Proverb

When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us. –Helen Keller

Everything has beauty, but not everyone can see. –Confucious

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. –Anne Frank

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. –Lao Tzu

The difference between a successful person and others is not lack of strength not a lack of knowledge but rather a lack of will. –Vince Lombardi

Happiness is not something readymade. It comes from your own actions. –Dalai Lama

The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible. –Arthur C. Clarke

First, have a definite, clear practical ideal; a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends; wisdom, money, materials, and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end. –Aristotle

If the wind will not serve, take to the oars. –Latin Proverb

You can’t fall if you don’t climb. But there’s no joy in living your whole life on the ground. –Unknown

Whoever loves much, performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well. –Vincent Van Gogh

Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears. –Les Brown

Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful. –Joshua J. Marine

The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing. –Walt Disney

I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do. –Leonardo da Vinci

Limitations live only in our minds. But if we use our imaginations, our possibilities become limitless. –Jamie Paolinetti

Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free. –Jim Morrison

What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do. –Bob Dylan

I didn’t fail the test. I just found 100 ways to do it wrong. –Benjamin Franklin

In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure. –Bill Cosby

A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. – Albert Einstein

The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person who is doing it. –Chinese Proverb

There are no traffic jams along the extra mile. –Roger Staubach

It is never too late to be what you might have been. –George Eliot

You become what you believe. –Oprah Winfrey

I would rather die of passion than of boredom. –Vincent van Gogh

A truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms when his hands are empty. –Unknown

It is not what you do for your children, but what you have taught them to do for themselves, that will make them successful human beings. –Ann Landers

If you want your children to turn out well, spend twice as much time with them, and half as much money. –Abigail Van Buren

Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs. –Farrah Gray

Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible. –Frank Zappa

Education costs money. But then so does ignorance. –Sir Claus Moser

Remember that the happiest people are not those getting more, but those giving more. –H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop. –Confucius

Let the refining and improving of your own life keep you so busy that you have little time to criticize others. –H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck. –Dalai Lama

You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. –Maya Angelou

Dream big and dare to fail. –Norman Vaughan

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. –Martin Luther King Jr.

Do what you can, where you are, with what you have. –Teddy Roosevelt

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any. –Alice Walker

Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning. –Gloria Steinem

It’s your place in the world; it’s your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live. –Mae Jemison

You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try. –Beverly Sills

Remember no one can make you feel inferior without your consent. –Eleanor Roosevelt

Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be. –Grandma Moses

The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me. –Ayn Rand

When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it. –Henry Ford

It’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years. –Abraham Lincoln